Xin Nian Kuai le !

Happy Chinese New Year! Today, January 26th, 2009, is the beginning of Chinese year 4706...the year of the Ox. If your birthday in 2009 can be divided equally by 12, you are an Ox. My sister, Pam, is an ox.
What are some traits of the ox? They are born leaders and inspire those around them. They are conservative, methodical and good with their hands. They can be chauvinistic and they demand their own way. (I am pleading the 5th if you want to ask me if any of these traits are evident in my sister.)
Some famous Oxen: Meg Ryan, B.B. King, Colin Powell, Gerald Ford, Eddie Murphy, Walt Disney, Vincent Van Gough, Princess Diana, Jim Carey and Barbara Bush.

Lily and I would like to wish you a wonderful New Year! The Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days, and ends with the Lantern Festival. Here's to the year of the ox!

Aberdeen bound!

Joe, my 14 year old, made the traveling basketball team again this year! He is so excited! Last year, he was the last man chosen...and not necessarily for skill, but mostly for listening to the coach, following directions on the court and giving 100% all the time. (yeah, I thought they had him confused with someone else too...why doesn't that happen with homework and housework?) Anyhow, this year, he made it on his basketball abilities, which was huge for him. He and the other 8th and 9th graders that will be going to Aberdeen, Scotland, will be leaving Feb 12th and returning Feb 15th. (He says that will be my birthday present...him coming home! - Now that's the Joe I know and love!)
His team traveled to Haugesund (2 hour trip north of here - 1.5 hrs of driving and 30 minutes on a ferry crossing a fjord) this past weekend and played two games. The first game was a real blowout...79-20 in favor of ISS. I was actually cheering for the other team to score by the 3rd quarter, because I felt so badly for them! The second game (which started 15 minutes after the first one ended) they lost, 57-50. It was a good game and they worked really hard. Joe even made two three pointers!
Tim was back in Stavanger playing a double header at ISS. He had a game with his club team and then a game right afterwards with his ISS JV2 team. They didn't win their JV game, but Tim had two really good games. Both of our boys have decided that basketball is the sport they enjoy the most. Everything else they compete in is just conditioning for basketball season.
Sadly, I actually did a green load of laundry last week. They have enough Celtics basketball gear between the two of them that I could do a totally green load. Scary.

Misc Jan pictures

Here are a few pictures that just don't fit in with the other blogs...The hazy picture is of the drive home from church on Sunday, Jan 4th...Lily's birthday...it was eerily hazy and there was hoar frost on everything. It was very pretty.
The picture of just Lily was taken Friday, Jan 2nd....she got this outfit for Christmas from her Grandma and Grandpa. She got a similar one for her birthday from her Nana and Nano...she's wearing it in her cake pictures.
Finally, there is the Nativity scene that is at our church. It is beautiful and the picture just doesn't capture it at all. It is quite large...the hand lighting the candle is of an adult.
Well, Lily has Nicholas and Noel (her Christmas dolls) sitting on the couch having a picnic and is currently got a huge wooden train track going in my craft room, so I better go see if I can play with her while she still lets me....she's getting bigger! Just ask her!

Happy 4th Birthday Lily!

Today my baby is 4!!! It is so hard to believe...she's been with us for 28 months now and there couldn't have been a more perfect match to our family! Today she took her dollie from Christmas, Noel, with her to church. Noel was dressed just like Lily. Of course still in the season of Christmas, we sang the song "The First Noel" (and it has a lot of verses to it!) and she kept on grinning, thinking they were singing to her dollie. :o)
Lily has been talking about having a Nemo cake since the summertime. The smile on her face when she first saw it all decorated was priceless. I bought her a Nemo stuffed animal when we were in Nanchang, China...less than a week after we got her. Nemo just happens to be a very well-known Disney character that has a limb deformity...a "special fin" as his father put it. Whenever I have a child under the age of 10 ask me about her arm (or lack thereof) I refer to the Nemo story...that usually pacifies the questioning child. She had a great birthday and she is already talking about her next one. (sigh..)
We still laugh uncontrollably when she does her "hippy hippy shake" wiggly bum dance that she can't resist to perform when the right beat comes along. We are also trying to convince her the will + not = won't....not wiln't. :o)
We are so blessed to have her as our daughter and sister!

A Saturday Walk....

Saturday, Rich couldn't stand being at the house any longer and so packed up some cheese and crackers and hot chocolate and took us all on a short drive to allow us to hike near a fjord (not sure exactly which one it was, to be honest). Lily walked almost the entire time and the dogs are still tired from all the running they did yesterday while we were there. Here are a few pictures from our jaunt...